A lot can be said about Joakim Noah’s career. Dramatic is one of them. Very few realize the toll it took on him. What was supposed to be the Gators reunion we wanted to happen on The OG podcast, turned heavy. Noah confessed to Florida alum, Udonis Haslem that he grappled with the scrutiny on him with difficulty. A good part of it was during the intensive rivalry between Noah’s Chicago Bulls and the LeBron James-led Miami Heat with UD.

At that time, Miami made several close campaigns for the playoffs and finals. They met the Bulls on the way many times. “I didn’t win no championship,” Noah said but added, “We had to get through you guys every time and I’m almost 40 years old and there’s a lot of um trauma that comes with losing at the highest level.”

An example of what he’s referring to could be the 2013 playoffs. LeBron, with UD, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh secured a 3-1 series win. They’d go on to win a second consecutive championship that year, Haslem and Wade’s third overall. Or it could be losing the 2011 Eastern Conference in what was a superteam vs superteam clash between Derrick Rose, Luol Deng, and Noah against James, Wade, and Bosh. However, Rose was injured and the Bulls couldn’t keep up with James and Bosh’s scoring offense.

For Noah, it was traumatizing playing while the world is watching these playoffs intensely. Like everyone in the league, they trained all year to make it this far for unforeseen circumstances like Rose’s injury costing them. “This is not a easy thing even 10 years later to talk about.” His way to cope was looking on the bright side.

The lessons from competing against LeBron James

Something that dogged the former French national team player was his supposed feud with LeBron James. Apart from James’ Miami squad, they met on the way to the playoffs when James was still with the Cavaliers. He cleared the air on Haslem and Mike Miller’s podcast that his comments on James was only driven by fierce competition.

Now he can look at his rivals with admiration and cherish even the moments they beat his team. “They remember the losing just as much as they remember the winning,” he referred to Haslem and Miller mentioning losing to the Bulls in an opening game.

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There’s not enough spoken about how good Noah was on the court as much as his off-court shenanigans. He doesn’t dwell on that anymore. The former DPOY has taken a lot of lessons from the sport and even his rivals and it shows.